


One More Chance

by VengeanceAngel



Series: Writer's Block 101 [2]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, This might technically be a continuation of the story before this, briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VengeanceAngel/pseuds/VengeanceAngel
Summary: Johnny learns more than he ever wanted to know and it threatens to break him into pieces. Luckily there are people who won't let him go down without a fight.
Relationships: Amanda LaRusso/Daniel LaRusso, Amanda LaRusso/Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Amanda LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, if you squint
Series: Writer's Block 101 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137365
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	One More Chance

**Author's Note:**

> I am SO sorry for this. I wrote it in about 45 minutes. Work was rough today and without saying what I do, let's just say that lives are in my hands and sometimes the desire to help doesn't mean much when there is so much working to harm them. 
> 
> So then I wrote this. And it was just one long train of thought while I processed my day by feeling all of the emotions I needed to feel. So what ended up on the paper...I'm not sure. For me, writing is like playing a piano. I close my eyes and just move my fingers to whatever I'm feeling at the moment and I hope that what is revealed is closer to masterpiece than mayhem. 
> 
> I hope you like it. Thanks for letting me vent on this site.

Johnny stares at the man in the hospital bed. His eyes never leave his face. It is the face that terrified him for years and now there is no rage and no scorn. Only peace. He feels his lower lip tremble and his brow furrows as he stops the tic from worsening. 

He sits quietly when the nurses come in and talk to him about treatments and his ability to hear. They encourage him to talk and joke and tell him how much he’s loved. They tell him all of it. He listens. And he forgets. 

There are visitors. Not many. A former nurse or two. It’s not as if they’re paying respects. It’s more like they want to see if it’s true. If the mighty and great man had finally met his match. A stroke. One small blood clot and Goliath had fallen. 

Miguel and Carmen stop in. He’s not sure how they knew, but he nods in acknowledgement of whatever they say. He doesn’t really listen this time. He doesn’t want to hear their words. Carmen is far too kind to bring up what he said to her over dinner so long ago, before she broke his heart. And he doesn’t want to share anything more with her than he has to. Miguel is enough. 

His students stop by and stutter and stammer over their condolences. Johnny wants to remind them that the man isn’t dead, but he doesn’t think that it matters. Not really. Maybe he’s always been dead. Maybe that was the problem. 

He senses it when Shannon comes in. Hears her snorts of derision. Comments about how she should have been given more than she was. How Johnny had fucked it up for all of them. He loses himself in the familiarity of it. And when it’s over and when she’s gone, he still hears it. He hears how he messed up. He hears how he could have made it better. But that’s just it. He doesn’t know how. He tried so hard and it was never enough and somehow that destroyed her life. His presence did that. And maybe it makes more sense now. 

Robby is better off with Kreese or at least he thinks he is. Robby hasn’t stopped in. Maybe he won’t. Kreese, though… Kreese is more than happy to come and make his comments. It isn’t until Johnny feels the heavy weight of the man’s hand on his shoulder that it becomes more apparent that he’s stuck here in this room with no way out and the only person who wants to comfort him is the monster who helped the man in the bed tear him apart. Robby’s voice filters through and Johnny thinks absently that he must have come with his former sensei. That hurts more than any verbal barb ever has. 

But it wasn’t always verbal. He tries to deny that, but it’s true enough. Bobby, Tommy, Ali… the rest… they all made comments about how he was so good at karate and so shit at balance on his own stairs at home. It was never more than a household accident. Even his own mother marveled at how Johnny could trip over his own two feet. He still isn’t sure how she rationalized away the loud yelling and the cry of alarm… and the sound of a man’s hand slamming into the cheek of a boy.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. He knows that he’s watched the lights dim at least twice. He got up once or twice to step into the small bathroom. And afterward… after his hands are washed… after he turns off the water… he looks up into the mirror and he stares. And he loses himself a little more. He hears the things that came out of his mouth in the beginning of his teaching career. And he hears it in his ears from his childhood. And he hates himself more and more. And it’s on his third trip to the bathroom that he slams the bottoms of his fists into the mirror. 

Nothing breaks, but the pain that spreads through his hands and his arms is almost enough. And when it’s not, he turns to the wall and he hits again and again until something does break and until liquid fire runs down his arm and he wants to continue, but then someone is grabbing him and pulling him away. The smear of red mocks him. The hands on him are many and he hasn’t made a sound in days. But now he does. Now the hands represent the man in the bed, and the sensei who swore he was different… that he was proud. And the hands of the men who found him stumbling outside of a bar when he was only 21 and new to the idea of not trusting strangers. 

And there is yelling and someone is making demands and then there is a whimper. It’s the first sound in days and it causes everything to freeze. Nothing and nobody moves. Johnny stares at the man in the hospital bed and he opens his mouth to speak and nothing comes out but another whimper. A plea for all of the voices and all of the hands to stop and leave him in the silence of a room with him and a man who was never supposed to hurt him again. And yet, here he is. Hurting. Aching. Wanting to be the one on the bed with the blood clot that makes everything he is just… disappear. 

The hands leave him back in the chair then as the voices become clearer. The demands are firm. Someone puts an arm around his back and he hears his name and he lets his head hang forward and that damned whimper escapes again. He feels someone help lift him up and walk toward the door. 

“Jesus, Johnny… when Miguel called, I thought nothing of it. But then the kids showed up late for practice and Kreese came by and said you were here… I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Johnny shrugs, the voice of a friend finally breaking through a bit. He doesn’t remember telling anyone actually. But maybe it was Carmen. Or Shannon. 

Carmen was here when he was brought in. Shannon was there when it happened. She wanted money. And when Johnny surprised her by making a visit to ask for help with Robby, they had argued. And the old man had laughed and told Johnny that it was good to see him getting what he deserved. A son who hates him. An ex who only wants what she can beg off of someone. And Johnny had asked him what he did wrong. He asked him why he hated him so much. And that’s when he found out. It was jealousy. His mother loved him and the old man didn’t want to share. 

So he paid Kreese to keep him late at practice, not because he was so good and showed such promise, but so the old man could have time with his mother, without having to share. 

And he paid the men that night to rough him up, enough to get him thrown in a drunk tank. The plan was to get him far away from his mother, help her to see how worthless he was. 

But that plan had backfired and he had no clue that men could see Johnny and think he was “pretty.” He had no idea that the plan that did not go well would actually be successful in other ways. Johnny felt shame. He felt ugly. He felt unworthy. And so he left. He stayed away all on his own. And he broke his mother’s heart because the old bastard told her that he was drunk all the time. He told her that Johnny didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to listen to her nag, didn’t want her to tell him how to live. Johnny wanted to feel her arms around him and wanted to cry into her soft hair and wanted to tell her what happened and let her soothe the fear and shame away. 

But he didn’t get the chance because the old man made up stories that turned Johnny into a monster. So Johnny became one. And he drank and he fought and he met a pretty waitress and he thought he might finally get to be happy. But then she got pregnant. And then he tried to do right by her. But it wasn’t enough and she said she didn’t want to be with him forever. And suddenly she was keeping the baby and promising happily ever after and he didn’t question where she got the money for her new maternity clothes or to put a down payment on a car. And he didn’t question why her decision to keep this baby happened at the same time that more food filled their refrigerator than ever before. 

And the night the blood clot knocked out Goliath was when Johnny discovered he had to thank the monster for the life of his son. And he knew. He knew that his mother found out about the baby coming. And Johnny managed to break her heart just one more time by denying her the love of a grandchild. 

So he gave the old man what he never gave him before. And he cried. He begged. He asked for forgiveness for all of the things that he is and he begged to be loved. He begged for reconciliation. He begged for a second chance. To have a family that, just once, was a sanctuary instead of a prison. 

And the old man laughed. And Shannon laughed. And he listened to them laugh until the laughter turned into choking. Until the laughter turned into screaming. Until he looked up to see Shannon frantically calling an ambulance as the man slid from his chair to the floor. And this was the man who loved Johnny’s mother. The last link. And Johnny knelt over him and he begged once more. 

“Please don’t go.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” 

It’s another man’s voice that answers him and Johnny isn’t sure why he’s not in the mansion anymore. He was just there a moment ago, but now he’s back in the hospital and the arm is around his back and he thinks that he might have said all of it out loud and he knows he’s not supposed to tell. He knows that once those secrets get out they will strangle him with far more strength than Kreese ever did.

And then the voice again. 

“Johnny… please look at me. Please.”

And Johnny does. 

So Johnny finally sees Daniel staring back at him, but there are tears in the brunette’s eyes and Johnny wonders why he looks like he’s grieving when Sid isn’t even dead yet. But Daniel is crying and Daniel’s forehead is against his and he’s whispering things like “I’m so sorry,” and “You’re not alone,” and “It’s not your fault.” 

Johnny doesn’t believe it. Why would he? He’ll never get forgiveness. He’ll never be allowed to have any of it. Daniel walks away and a nurse takes his place and there’s pain and another whimper and talks of an x-ray and finally he closes his eyes for only a second and feels nothing. 

Within that split second of darkness, Johnny has been moved to a bed and his hand has been cast and he’s disoriented because he only closed his eyes for a moment. He’s alone and he can’t feel anything. No pain. No emotion. Nothing. 

But Daniel walks in with his grieving eyes and he wants to turn away, but instead he lets out that fucking whimper again and he’s beginning to think that he’s broken something inside that allows him to hide. Daniel isn’t allowing it, though, because his grieving eyes see everything and he leans in close so Johnny is forced to focus and he speaks to him with a ragged voice as if he’s been crying out loud.

“Johnny…. You’re coming home with me. Do you understand? You’re coming home. I’m so sorry I never knew.” He turns toward the door then and gestures. 

And Amanda stands there and she looks sad, but stronger than both men put together. Johnny wonders at her strength and becomes worried that he’ll break her, too. It’s what he does. He breaks everything. And he pays for it. With a man’s hand on his cheek. With a man’s arm around his neck. With a man’s foot to his face. With a man’s… 

Johnny doesn’t whimper this time. He gasps. And he shudders in a long forgotten pain. One he’d buried deep until a vengeful old man told him that he truly did deserve all of it. That he was so rotten that the love of his mother’s life purposely destroyed him with more and more hands and more and more pain until there was nothing left of him to give to anyone. And he’s a husk and Daniel is being nice and Amanda isn’t going to want to stay. 

Nobody wants to stay. 

And yet…

Amanda walks closer and she doesn’t wither in the face of his pain. 

And Johnny begs. 

He begs her to nag. He begs her to tell him how to live. He begs her to make all the pain go away. 

And he feels her arms around him and he cries into her soft hair and he tells her what happened and he lets her soothe the fear and shame away. And when another pair of arms wrap around them both, he doesn’t pull away because this is what it was supposed to be. He was supposed to always have two pairs of arms around him. His mother and father. His wife and his son. And now Daniel and Amanda.

They don’t yell or attack. They speak quietly and pull him together and promise him a home that's a sanctuary and not a prison. And they promise him a family that’s his. And he’s never seen goodness like this in his life except for in the arms of his mother and eyes of his son and he weeps for the years he lost because of the old man in the bed. 

Later, after he’s exhausted and after Daniel and Amanda have listened to him cry out the details of his life that were to remain secret, he’s led out of the hospital and out to the car. 

He wants to ask if the old man is dead, but decides that regardless, it’s time to bury him so he can stop staring at him in his bed and start looking toward something new. Something good. Something he deserves. 

And so he does.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm half tempted to consider this a sequel to part one. I mean... it's possible. It's not how I wrote it, but I can also see that I'm influenced by the one before so... if you would like to connect them together in your mind, feel free.


End file.
